Flashbulb
by Tozette
Summary: Postwar with a slight HD bent. Everything is smoothed over. Written for JestAJester, although she may not realise it.


Disclaimer, disclaimer. I would disclaim, but it wouldn't really stop anybody from filing a suit. At least I'm not selling it, ne?

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Hogwarts: A Slightly More Recent History, shows Hermione's typically dry take on events after the war.

Later, Ron is angry at the dispassionate arrangement of letters that are supposed to be names, as though a mere name could indicate the depth of sacrifice. She understands, but her chapter is published nonetheless, the old-fashioned prints running off page after uniform page in file. Harry understands better than either of them, perhaps: he understands Ron's outrage, but he understands Hermione's need to rationalise. She deals in facts. He deals in feelings. He finds them perversely well-suited to each other.

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In the month after the war, he found anonymity surprisingly easily.

Every wizard, every witch, down to a man or woman, celebrated. The time flew in a maze of heat and light and noise where he was always welcome, always loved, by a city that was praising freedom; a world revelling in its new identity.

Dawn broke over the horizon and Harry Potter, saviour of the world, moved on to his next engagement, the next shock of light and heat and noise so loud it thrummed along his bones.

"Celebrating," he mouthed back to Ginny, who he distantly recalled giving him concerned eyes. He repeated the word to Remus, to Ron, to Hermione. Their faces blurred into indistinct circles. They could have been male or female, human or otherwise; a parade of dark eyes and concerned voices.

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A Modern History outlines Dumbledore's sacrifice, Harry's vaunted bravery, even makes a brief note of the Malfoy family's place in the victory over darkness.

Their names are quickly cleared by their money, a dearly-needed resource as the Wizarding World begins to rebuild. It tells of the grief in a dispassionate, passive voice, the casualties and the triumphs. It certainly speaks of Harry in worshipful tones. He finds himself uncomfortable with it. He has never really been used to fame.

"Potter," an icy voice drawled one morning as he reached for the Firewhiskey to forestall his headache for just one more day, "what are you doing?"

The word stuck in his throat.

There was a rustle of paper. "Want to hear what the Prophet has to say about Potter's psychotic binge?"

"Sod off, Malfoy." He uncapped the lid and took a long pull before he realised that the bottle was empty. He frowned at it. "This was half-full last night."

"I would say it was half empty," Draco considered. "And it was, but you drank it."

"How the hell do you know? How long have you been here?"

"Long enough. Are you going to stop being an idiot? Or should I tell Weasel junior that you had to be hauled off to St. Mungo's?"

Harry met his eyes. Sometime during the war, they'd settled on a dark, gunmetal grey. The colour itself wasn't ugly, but there was something hard in the middle. He didn't understand the half of it, Harry could sneer. He didn't. The only people that would understand it all were dead. Severus Snape. Albus Dumbledore. Finally, thankfully, Voldemort. Riddle.

Finally, thankfully, nothing more than a body of thoughts.

"What do you want, Malfoy? What more do you want?" A pause. "Don't call her that."

"You didn't have to do it, you stupid git. You chose."

Harry closed his eyes. "You think somebody else would have. Would you, Malfoy? Yeah, I can see that. Big, brave Draco Malfoy. Standing up to your daddy and his stupid mask-toting cronies." He sat up.

"Irrelevant." Draco Malfoy waved this off. He had become rapidly accustomed to wrapping himself in unassailable dignity and ignoring comments that did not suit him; nobody could take his pride if he did not let them.

Harry envied him, when he could be bothered. "So? What do you want?" he ground out.

"Simply put, I want you to stop being a stupid arse. But I'm not in the habit of expecting miracles, Potter, so let's just agree that you'll get out of bed and stay sober for at least as long as it takes you to piss this morning."

"Sod off, Malfoy," Harry snarled. But his point was taken.

And to his surprise, Draco did.

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Harry Potter, Hermione writes, showed his adaptability by immediately taking up with the Wasps as a star Seeker. For those brief years, Quidditch reaches the zenith of its popularity. The flagging industry picks up and runs with its new publicity.

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Ginny was pregnant. It left Harry awed, anxious, protective. Mostly it left him confused. Magic, she whispered. Ron was stuck somewhere between distressed and proud, and never sure which emotion applied to each of them. Hermione took these things in stride.

The pitch was dark after practise. Harry collected the Snitch; these professional-league ones didn't seem to mind being caught outside of a real game. Oddly sentient, but not outside their prescribed boundaries. Harry turned the little piece of treasure over in his palm.

"I see you're playing for the arse-end of the ladder again, Potter."

"Sod off, Malfoy." It had been a while. A year. Three. He didn't remember. That bothered him.

He had the same Nordic looks as ever, the same as every other pure-blooded Malfoy in his family tree. His skin never lined. Only his eyes aged. Hardened. Draco had taken to the murky waters of politics like a shark. His dark robes had the air of a suit about them, like he was dressed up for a very chic funeral.

"Being a hero doesn't pay the bills, does it, Potter?"

"Are you deaf, Malfoy?" He tossed the Snitch into its case and strapped it up tightly before throwing it over his shoulder. As he walked past the blond, he leaned in close. Pointedly he said, "Sod off", and kept walking.

Malfoy's polished leather shoes made authoritative clicks on the floor of the locker room. He did not scrunch up his nose at the pale scent of sweat that had seeped into the tiles. Harry stopped to look at him. "What do you want?"

Draco tucked a few strands of blond hair behind one ear. It was growing. He really did look like his father. Less contrived. Which probably meant that he calculated his every action. A shark in the deeps, a snake in the grass. Harry waited patiently. Time, he had plenty of time.

He was not going to spend it cataloguing the every change in Malfoy's dress and behaviour. It made a bleak study. "Malfoy." He prompted.

"As it turns out," the blond said, watching him with calm eyes, as though he knew the inevitable outcome of their meeting already when Harry didn't even know the topic, "the Ministry is in the market for heroes."

Perhaps he did know.

"Quidditch season --"

"The final is in two weeks. Your contract runs out."

Harry clenched his jaw and clutched his broomstick tightly in one hand. "An Auror."

"Apparently."

Harry swallowed. "What, you're not good enough?"

Draco did not rise to the bait. He didn't even answer immediately. The words seemed to hang in the air, the soft insidious sounds of 'good enough' winding around them like smoke. It made it difficult to breathe.

"Think it over. Say hello to your wife for me."

"Fat chance. She's sick every morning as it is."

Draco was gone in a crack. Harry shoved the Quidditch balls away. He would think about it.

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Harry's following stint as an Auror in the restructured Ministry is looked upon as an odd quirk in his life of stardom, but it is perhaps the most poignant decision Harry Potter has ever made.

If Hermione realises that it is perhaps the_ first_ decision Harry Potter has ever made on his own terms, on his own initiative, she keeps it quietly to herself.

The world does not need to know all the facts.

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Draco Malfoy looked up from writing a missive, his quill meticulously outlining the symbols for a particularly nasty hex. He despised overdue drafts.

"Morning, Potter."

"Sod off, Malfoy."

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I think I screwed Malfoy up. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I've been so bad at updating anything recently that I wanted to post practically anything, so after this one hit me, I did.


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